EDH Pauper Deck Time: Disciple of Deceit

This one is kind of obvious EDH Pauper material. Still, probably a fun deck to build.

The only time I’ve played with [scryfall]Disciple of Deceit[/scryfall] was in the prerelease of Journey Into Nyx. Sometimes it was very good, other times it was just a smallish wall. Still, that was sealed and I didn’t have many tools to work with. In EDH this guy will probably shine, especially if I can use him as the commander.

So, what does this deck want?

Its a toolbox. We can include a wide variety of answers in the deck, since any time we need something, we can just get it. Probably. Hopefully.

Also, there can be a graveyard theme. Sure, that’s going to be pretty limited, as we don’t really have that many possibilities for extreme value out of recursion, but since we are going to be discarding stuff to our commander, we might as well try to get something out of it.

Then there’s untapping. As this is a part of blue’s domain and often just some extra value on the card, we can probably abuse these cards to get what we need when we need it.

Of course, in order to untap our commander, we need to tap it, as well. Gladly, there’s plenty of tools for this as well, although not sure how many there are that don’t work with the creature under summoning sickness, but we won’t find out before we go through the possibilities. Gladly, blue is also good at making things unblockable and, since we don’t need real unblockability, just hard to block, black can also help with intimidate.

The real question is this: In order for this particular commander to work, we need plenty of cards at the same CMC, so we need to make a decision on which CMCs we want to use. (Clue: Good removal and quite a few good counters are on 2.)

Good (enough) removal on two: [scryfall]Doom Blade[/scryfall], of course, being the iconic black removal these days, [scryfall]Victim of Night[/scryfall], [scryfall]Terror[/scryfall], [scryfall]Chime of Night[/scryfall], [scryfall]Feast of Dreams[/scryfall], [scryfall]Death Stroke[/scryfall], [scryfall]Soul Reap[/scryfall], [scryfall]Toxic Stench[/scryfall], [scryfall]Cruel Edict[/scryfall], [scryfall]Diabolic Edict[/scryfall], [scryfall]Geth’s Verdict[/scryfall]. Sure many are way too situational for normal play, but since we can search, we can take a very toolboxy approach to the whole thing. There’s also plenty of blue semiremoval, which can be helpful. [scryfall]Narcolepsy[/scryfall] is probably the best situated, since it can facilitate our commander in a strange way.

Good counters on two: [scryfall]Arcane Denial[/scryfall], [scryfall]Confound[/scryfall], [scryfall]Counterspell[/scryfall], [scryfall]Deprive[/scryfall], [scryfall]Essence Scatter[/scryfall], [scryfall]False Summoning[/scryfall], [scryfall]Mana Leak[/scryfall], [scryfall]Miscalculation[/scryfall], [scryfall]Negate[/scryfall], [scryfall]Nullify[/scryfall], [scryfall]Preemptive Strike[/scryfall], [scryfall]Psychic Barrier[/scryfall], [scryfall]Remove Soul[/scryfall]. Less situational than the removal since we need to be able to get these into our hand before the spell resolves, which would be hard at times, if we don’t have enough ways to untap our commander.

Removal on three: [scryfall]Murder[/scryfall], [scryfall]Dark Banishing[/scryfall], [scryfall]Asphyxiate[/scryfall], [scryfall]Assassinate[/scryfall], [scryfall]Expunge[/scryfall], [scryfall]Eyeblight’s Ending[/scryfall], [scryfall]Hideous End[/scryfall], [scryfall]Horobi’s Whisper[/scryfall], [scryfall]Rend Flesh[/scryfall], [scryfall]Strangling Root[/scryfall],

Counters on three: [scryfall]Cancel[/scryfall], [scryfall]Dream Fracture[/scryfall], [scryfall]Exclude[/scryfall], [scryfall]Faerie Trickery[/scryfall], [scryfall]Psychic Strike[/scryfall], [scryfall]Soul Manipulation[/scryfall], [scryfall]Stoic Rebuttal[/scryfall], [scryfall]Rethink[/scryfall], [scryfall]Circular Logic[/scryfall], [scryfall]Convolute[/scryfall] (these last three might not be good search targets, because if your opponents know you’re holding them, they are easy to play around, but they can be discarded to find something better).

Untappers: [scryfall]Crypsis[/scryfall], [scryfall]Cerulean Wisps[/scryfall], [scryfall]Breaching Hippocamp[/scryfall], [scryfall]Coral Trickster[/scryfall], [scryfall]Freed from the Real[/scryfall], [scryfall]Galvanic Alchemist[/scryfall], [scryfall]Norritt[/scryfall] (yes, we’re going very deep here), [scryfall]Pestermite[/scryfall], [scryfall]Rimewind Taskmage[/scryfall], if we’re willing to invest into Snow Lands, [scryfall]Stonybrook Angler[/scryfall], [scryfall]Tidewater Minion[/scryfall], [scryfall]Twitch[/scryfall], [scryfall]Vanishing[/scryfall], [scryfall]Vault Skyward[/scryfall].

Well, I’m not going to make a list for you. Plenty of ideas available, you can build your own deck to fit your own metagame. I can’t really tell you whether you should be playing [scryfall]Eyeblight’s Ending[/scryfall] or [scryfall]Pharika’s Cure[/scryfall]. Both are good and both have limitations. (Well, generally choose the former in this format). I just did some of the research for you.

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